Musings
by blazed-in-ink
Summary: What if he had died?


_**A/N: **I really don't know. Honestly, I really don't.  
_

* * *

All power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. How true that is.

The fire that he had lit under their cause had gone out, left unattended for too long because its creator had lost himself.

And what were they supposed to do? Continue without their leader, without the person that had united them under the same metaphorical banner? For even though he was dead, their enemy had not relented. And as much as it pained her to admit, they were _nothing_ without him. He had been the reason they fought, the reason they stayed alive, the one person that every person in their order would give their lives for.

And now…he was gone. He had gone to sacrifice himself, believing that he was invincible, because he had been given far too much power, far too much responsibility, when he was far too young.

A part of her wanted to forgive him, to take his body into her arms and weep over him. But she couldn't. Her pride, in herself, in their cause, in the lives that had been lost because of his arrogance, prevented her from giving in.

Because Death glorifies people. It causes their faults to be forgotten, their sins to be ignored, their weaknesses omitted from the pages of history. Their good deeds are emphasized, their benevolence exaggerated, their charity embellished until their very existence is reduced to two words: "the Good," "the Great," or "the Wise."

But none are without flaws, and he was no different. The world would remember him as a hero, tack "the Great" onto the end of his name, and memorialize him as a great martyr, the leader of the light falling in a great self-sacrifice to the always-hungry vacuum of the dark. Biographies of his life would be colored with the knowledge of his martyrdom. His name would be taught to schoolchildren, sitting eagerly and innocently at their desks, knowing nothing of who he really was, knowing nothing of the selfish, corrupted man that only she saw. And only she, the person who was closest to him in is darkest moments, knew him as his true self.

And she couldn't forgive him. It was selfish, she knew, but she couldn't. She couldn't forgive him for leaving her to fight this war alone. For letting himself be killed with not a word of his plans to her or anyone. Maybe he thought he would have some sort of protection against his killer, maybe it was a calculated risk gone wrong, maybe…maybe…maybe. Her heart kept thinking up excuses for him, but her head rejected them. Because even though she loved him, she could never forgive him for this. She would tell no one of his degrade, speak not a word about his demise, disclose no allusions about who he was in the final months. Because she _loved_ him, so much it hurt, so much that his name repeated in her head whenever she was with him. She loved him irrationally, irresponsibly, irreversibly, to the point where she would kill to be with him. Including herself.

And even though she could never forgive him, being with him and hating him was better than not and loving him. Because hate and love are neighbors, friends, they come hand in hand. They are two sides of the same equation – as one increases, so does the capacity for the other. And just like before, her hate of him could, again, turn to love. And, given time, it would.

In future days, they would say how she went out in a blaze of fire, fighting them. They would acclaim her martyrdom, like they had acclaimed his. Some would cry that it was suicide, and they would be correct, but their world didn't want one of their most prominent fighters to have given up. Those who gossiped over her in smoky pubs and dingy taverns speculated that she didn't expect to live through this, and that she didn't want to. They wondered if she didn't want to see the new age they were hoping to usher in. If she didn't want to heal. But they didn't know why. They didn't know that she wanted _answers_, and she knew she was never going to get them. They didn't know that her heart wasn't cracked. It wasn't broken. They didn't know the strength of her love – and therefore her hate, as well – for him. They didn't know that it was _shattered_ like a treasured porcelain cup, trampled under a multitude of boots – Arrogance, Pride, Hate, Apathy, Love – until it was nothing like it used to be. They didn't know that all she wanted to do was kill as many of those who killed him – whether it was physically through his death or mentally, by fighting all his attempts to contain them – before they killed her. They didn't know that her obsession with plotting their death became a need, and it was the only thing keeping her going. Before, they didn't know that she would do it, she would kill them, and then she would die. And they didn't even guess that when she met Death, she pleaded for more time. And it was not because she didn't want to join him – she longed to lean into the Reaper's embrace and let him envelope her in his warmth, to finally feel peace. And no one, no one except a certain gray-haired man, guessed that she pleaded for more time because she hadn't been able to kill them all.


End file.
